Season 8 of 'That Metal Show' debuted on Saturday night with Black Sabbath guitar god Tony Iommi as the week's special guest, revealing his book plans and the status of the band, among other things.

The hosts immediately caught viewers up with what they have been doing in between Season 7 and now. Comedian Don Jamieson, with his mutton chops, joked that he has a new band called Gunfire and Sodomy, which he described as "acoustic death metal." He also said that Jerry Gaskill of King's X is in the band with him. Actually, Jamieson is heavily promoting his comedy album 'Live and Hilarious,' which was released by Metal Blade.

Ginger kid Jim Florentine revealed that he is starring in the film 'A Little Help' and is prepping for a comedy CD, 'Cringe and Purge,' also on the way from Metal Blade. Florentine said that his 11-month-old son cries when he sees Beyonce on TV, but that he rocks out to Black Sabbath. We're glad to see that Jim is training his offspring well.

Eddie Trunk, who recently chatted with Loudwire about this season of the show, penned his first book, 'Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock & Heavy Metal,' since he is the fount of knowledge when it comes to the genre. It was quite the busy off-season for the trio.

With Def Leppard's Phil Collen serving as the guest guitarist for this episode, riffing here and there, the unholy trinity jumped right into things, debating their Top 5 Metal Covers. They pooled their opinions and selected Judas Priest's cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Green Manalishi' and of Joan Baez's 'Diamonds & Rust' as the best of all time.

When a black-clad Iommi sat in for the interview segment, Florentine was grinning like a fanboy, because that's what he and his co-hosts are. They are clearly enamored by heavy metal and hard rock and we can't blame them.

Given this week's "drama" regarding a possible Black Sabbath reunion with all four original members, Iommi measured his words carefully when asked about the status of Sabbath. Even though this episode was pre-taped, Iommi did not provide too much information, saying that he has a "great" relationship with Ozzy and that working together again is never out of the question. "Wouldn't you like to know?" was how the guitarist responded when asked if Sabbath will eventually reform. "If we manage to live long enough, we might do it," he joked. So there is hope, hard rockers!

The riffsmith did recount the time that the band reunited a few years ago, living and recording at a house in Wales. "It was chaos but we wrote about five or six songs," Iommi said. "But we never used them. We scrapped them since Ozzy was doing 'The Osbournes.' We just didn't carry on." So close, yet so so far. At least Iommi offered the notion that there could be a Sabbath in our future.

Iommi also talked about his upcoming book, which is due out this Fall, and recounts the story of his life.

It was a jam-packed episode, with next week's edition featuring the late Jani Lane's final TV interview.